A method is presented for determining the point spread function (PSF) of an electron beam in a scanning electron microscope for the examination of near planar samples. Once measured, PSFs can be used with two or more low-resolution images of a selected area to create a high-resolution reconstructed image of that area. As an example, a 4× improvement in resolution for images is demonstrated for a fine gold particle sample. Since thermionic source instruments have high beam currents associated with large probe sizes, use of this approach implies that high-resolution images can be produced rapidly if the probe diameter is less of a limiting factor. Additionally, very accurate determination of the PSFs can lead to a better understanding of instrument performance as exemplified by very accurate measurement of the beam shape and therefore the degree of astigmatism.

Coalescence is a significant pathway for the growth of nanostructures. Here we studied the coalescence of Bi nanoparticles in situ by liquid cell transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The growth of Bi nanoparticles was initiated from a bismuth neodecanoate precursor solution by electron beam irradiation inside a liquid cell under the TEM. A significant number of coalescence events occurred from the as-grown Bi nanodots. Both symmetric coalescence of two equal-sized nanoparticles and asymmetric coalescence of two or more unequal-sized nanoparticles were analyzed along their growth trajectories. Our observation suggests that two mass transport mechanisms, i.e., surface diffusion and grain boundary diffusion, are responsible for the shape evolution of nanoparticles after a coalescence event.

To unambiguously evaluate the indium and nitrogen concentrations in InxGa1−xNyAs1−y, two independent sources of information must be obtained experimentally. Based on high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) images taken with a high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) detector the strain state of the InGaNAs quantum well is determined as well as its characteristic HAADF-scattering intensity. The strain state is evaluated by applying elasticity theory and the HAADF intensity is used for a comparison with multislice simulations. The combination of both allows for determination of the chemical composition where the results are in accordance with X-ray diffraction measurements, three-dimensional atom probe tomography, and further transmission electron microscopy analysis. The HAADF-STEM evaluation was used to investigate the influence of As-stabilized annealing on the InGaNAs/GaAs sample. Photoluminescence measurements show an annealing-induced blue shift of the emission wavelength. The chemical analysis precludes an elemental diffusion as origin of the energy shift—instead the results are in agreement with a model based on an annealing-induced redistribution of the atomic next-neighbor configuration.

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is a promising material for a range of applications including deep-ultraviolet light emission. Despite extensive experimental studies, some fundamental aspects of hBN remain unknown, such as the type of stacking faults likely to be present and their influence on electronic properties. In this paper, different stacking configurations of hBN are investigated using CASTEP, a pseudopotential density functional theory code. AB-b stacking faults, in which B atoms are positioned directly on top of one another while N atoms are located above the center of BN hexagons, are shown to be likely in conventional AB stacked hBN. Bandstructure calculations predict a single direct bandgap structure that may be responsible for the discrepancies in bandgap type observed experimentally. Calculations of the near edge structure showed that different stackings of hBN are distinguishable using measurements of core-loss edges in X-ray absorption and electron energy loss spectroscopy. AB stacking was found to best reproduce features in the experimental B and N K-edges. The calculations also show that splitting of the 1s to π* peak in the B K-edge, recently observed experimentally, may be accounted for by the presence of AB-b stacking faults.

Characteristic energies of photonic modes are a sensitive function of a nanostructures’ geometrical parameters. In the case of translationally invariant planar waveguides, the eigen-energies reside in the infrared to ultraviolet parts of the optical spectrum and they sensitively depend on the thickness of the waveguide. Using swift electrons and the inherent Cherenkov radiation in dielectrics, the energies of such photonic states can be effectively probed via monochromated electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS). Here, by exploiting the strong photonic signals in EELS with 200 keV electrons, we correlate the energies of waveguide peaks in the 0.5–3.5 eV range with planar thicknesses of the samples. This procedure enables us to measure the thicknesses of cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy samples over a 1–500 nm range and with best-case accuracies below ±2%. The measurements are absolute with the only requirement being the optical dielectric function of the material. Furthermore, we provide empirical formulation for rapid and direct thickness estimations for a 50–500 nm range. We demonstrate the methodology for two semiconducting materials, silicon and gallium arsenide, and discuss how it can be applied to other dielectrics that produce strong optical fingerprints in EELS. The asymptotic form of the loss function for two-dimensional materials is also discussed.

Recently, the use of different types of natural fibers to produce paper and textiles from agave plants has been proposed. Agave atrovirens can be a good source of cellulose and lignin; nevertheless, the microstructural changes that happen during delignification have scarcely been studied. The aim of this work was to study the microstructural changes that occur during the delignification of agave fibers by means of microscopy techniques and image analysis. The fibers of A. atrovirens were obtained from leaves using convective drying, milling, and sieving. Fibers were processed using the Acetosolv pulping method at different concentrations of acetic acid; increasing acid concentration promoted higher levels of delignification, structural damage, and the breakdown of fiber clumps. Delignification followed by spectrometric analysis and microstructural studies were carried out by light, confocal laser scanning and scanning electron microscopy and showed that the delignification process follows three stages: initial, bulk, and residual. Microscopy techniques and image analysis were efficient tools for microstructural characterization during delignification of agave fibers, allowing quantitative evaluation of the process and the development of linear prediction models. The data obtained integrated numerical and microstructural information that could be valuable for the study of pulping of lignocellulosic materials.

This paper reports a study of local orientation change occurring within micro-scale tensile samples as a function of strain. These samples were fabricated from a thin film of single crystal bcc Fe and deformed in tension using an in situ micro-mechanical testing device inside a scanning electron microscope. Samples were loaded along the <110> direction parallel to the specimen axis, strained to different levels, and then subjected to electron backscatter diffraction scans over the entire area of the gauge section. Analysis of the surface orientation data shows that, within a necked zone of the micro-sample gauge section, there are two distinct regions of significant orientation change, in which local crystal rotations occur in opposite directions. These two regions are separated by an intermediate band that shows minimal misorientation from the original state. Crystal rotations within the two regions that develop opposite orientations are found to be consistent with classic single crystal slip, where the slip direction rotates toward the tensile axis. It is shown that increasing tensile strain causes an increasing degree of rotation away from the starting orientation. The tests also illustrate the occurrence of slip on at least two different slip systems, based on the slip traces and orientation change.

Recent ex situ observations of crystallization in both natural and synthetic systems indicate that the classical models of nucleation and growth are inaccurate. However, in situ observations that can provide direct evidence for alternative models have been lacking due to the limited temporal and spatial resolution of experimental techniques that can observe dynamic processes in a bulk solution. Here we report results from liquid cell transmission electron microscopy studies of nucleation and growth of Au, CaCO3, and iron oxide nanoparticles. We show how these in situ data can be used to obtain direct evidence for the mechanisms underlying nanoparticle crystallization as well as dynamic information that provide constraints on important energetic parameters not available through ex situ methods.

High precision determination of atomic position is necessary for quantitative electron microscopy so that small width of peaks, which represent atoms in structural images, adequate resolution, and sufficiently strong image contrast are needed. The width of peak is usually determined by the point spread (PS) of instruments, but the PS of objects should also be taken into consideration in aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy when point resolution of a microscope reaches the sub-angstrom scale, and thus the PS of the instrument is comparable with that of the object. In this article, PS is investigated by studying peak width with variation of atomic number, sample thickness, and spherical aberration coefficients in both negative Cs (NCSI) and positive Cs imaging (PCSI) modes by means of dynamical image simulation. Through comparing the peak width with various atomic number, thickness, and values of spherical aberration, NCSI mode is found to be superior to PCSI considering the smaller width.

Recent studies have shown that when graphene is placed on a thin hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) substrate, unlike when it is placed on a typical SiO2 surface, it can closely approach the ideal carrier mobility observed in suspended graphene samples. This study further examines the epitaxial relationship between graphene and h-BN substrate with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy simulation. Virtual monolayer and multilayer stacks of h-BN were produced with a monolayer of graphene on top, on bottom, and in between h-BN layers, in order to study this interface. Once the simulations were performed, the phase contrast image and Moiré pattern created by this heterostack were analyzed for local and global intensity minima and maxima. In addition, h-BN substrate thickness and rotations between h-BN and graphene were probed and analyzed. The simulated images produced in this work will be used to help understand subsequent transmission electron microscopy images and electron energy-loss studies.

In this work we report a study of the chemical and structural order of the double perovskite compound Sr2-xGdxMnTiO6 for compositions x=0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1. A noticeable disorder at the B-site in the Mn and Ti sublattice is detected at the atomic scale by electron energy-loss spectroscopy for all x values, resulting in Mn-rich and Ti-rich regions. For x≥0.75, the cubic unit cell doubles and lowers its symmetry because of structural rearrangements associated with a giant ferroelectric displacement of the perovskite B-site cation. We discuss this finding in the light of the large electroresistance observed in Sr2-xGdxMnTiO6, x≥0.75.

We apply common image enhancement principles and sub-pixel sample positioning to achieve a significant enhancement in the spatial resolution of a vertical scanning interferometer. We illustrate the potential of this new method using a standard atomic force microscope calibration grid and other materials having motifs of known lateral and vertical dimensions. This approach combines the high vertical resolution of vertical scanning interferometry and its native advantages (large field of view, rapid and nondestructive data acquisition) with important increases in lateral resolution. This combination offers the means to address a common challenge in microscopy: the integration of properties and processes that depend on, and vary as a function of observational length.

The atomic structure of Cs0.44[Nb2.54W2.46O14] closely resembles the structure of the most active catalyst for the synthesis of acrylic acid, the M1 phase of ${\rm Mo}_{{{\rm 10}}} {\rm V}_{{\rm 2}}^{{{\rm 4{\plus}}}} {\rm Nb}_{2} {\rm TeO}_{{{\rm 42}{\minus}x}} $ . Consistently with observations made for the latter compound, the high-angle electron scattering signal recorded by scanning transmission electron microscopy shows a significant intensity variation, which repeats periodically with the projected crystallographic unit cell. The occupation factors for the individual mixed Nb/W atomic columns are extracted from the observed intensity variations. For this purpose, experimental images and simulated images are compared on an identical intensity scale, which enables a quantification of the cation distribution. According to our analysis specific sites possess low tungsten concentrations of 25%, whereas other sites have tungsten concentrations above 70%. These findings allow us to refine the existing structure model of the target compound, which has until now described a uniform distribution of the niobium and tungsten atoms in the unit cell, showing that the similarity between Cs0.44[Nb2.54W2.46O14] and the related catalytic compounds also extends to the level of the cation segregation.

Here, we report the development of an approach to map atomic resolution images into a convenient matrix representation. Through the combination of two-dimensional Gaussian fitting and the projective standard deviation, atom column locations are projected onto two noncollinear reference lattice vectors that are used to assign each a unique (i, j) matrix index. By doing so, straightforward atomic resolution image analysis becomes possible. Using practical examples, we demonstrate that the matrix representation greatly simplifies categorizing atom columns to different sublattices. This enables a myriad of direct analyses, such as mapping atom column properties and correlating long-range atom column pairs. MATLAB source code can be downloaded from https://github.com/subangstrom/aci.